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AbbVie Acquires Shire, Tax Breaks

Walgreens has been in the news quite a bit lately after it floated the idea of relocating its headquarters to Switzerland; a move that would save the company billions of dollars in U.S. taxes. And now another Chicago area corporation may have a similar plan. AbbVie, the research arm of Abbott Laboratories, bought the Dublin-based Shire pharmaceutical company last Friday for nearly $55 billion. This means that AbbVie could create a tax domicile in Britain that would also save it from paying billions in domestic taxes. We break down the economic impact this move will have on Chicago with Andrew Wang, Crain's Chicago Business, Thomas Lys, professor of accounting information and management at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and Kevin Allison, who is a corporate columnist for Reuters Breakingviews.